


Eighteen Seconds

by ScottieIsImpatient



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Death, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottieIsImpatient/pseuds/ScottieIsImpatient
Summary: It takes eighteen seconds for a crew compliment of eighty-three to die.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Eighteen Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil something I whipped up. I challenged myself to write in vague future tense. Turned out decent.

When the end comes, they won’t know right away.

It will look like a normal ship at first: dead and adrift in space. No bio-signs. Archer, being the caring yet impulsive soul he is, will send out a hail. No one will be suspicious in the slightest. Except Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, perhaps. It’s his job to be suspicious.

They will not know where the fleet came from. They will never know.

The fight will only last eighteen seconds. In eighteen seconds, the _Enterprise_ will be but mere dust.

At five seconds, the warp nacelles will be destroyed. At seven; the port side will be taken out, sending eight bodies – eight crewmen – into open space to drift for the rest of eternity. By that point, Captain Archer will have ordered for _Enterprise_ to return fire, but it will be too late.

Ten seconds. With a scream that fades into silence, the bridge will be blown out.

Twelve seconds. While desperately trying to flee the destruction, another twenty-one crewmembers will die.

Fifteen seconds. The launch bay will be destroyed.

Engineering will be the last place still standing. In a final act of desperation, Commander Tucker will overload the warp core.

The ship will explode.

Eighteen seconds.

It will take eighteen seconds for a crew compliment of eighty-three to die.

But today, they live.

Harriet Kleason sneaks a glance over her shoulder and watches with a careful eye as Lieutenant Reed approaches the head engineer, Commander Tucker, with a PADD in his hand. She watches as they seem to engage in some friendly banter before breaking into laughter. She watches them: they are so carefree- so blissfully unaware. If it weren’t for the temporal prime directive, she would warn them of the disaster that is to come.

Harriet sighs and forces the images out of her head. She has duties to attend to, after all; both in this time and her own.


End file.
